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Related: About this forumFukushima lesson: Prepare for unanticipated nuclear accidents
http://www.ns.umich.edu/new/releases/20262-fukushima-lesson-prepare-for-unanticipated-nuclear-accidents[font face=Times, Times New Roman, Serif][font size=5]Fukushima lesson: Prepare for unanticipated nuclear accidents[/font]
Published on Mar 08, 2012
Written by Jim Erickson
[font size=3]ANN ARBOR, Mich.A year after the crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, scientists and engineers remain largely in the dark when it comes to fundamental knowledge about how nuclear fuels behave under extreme conditions, according to a University of Michigan nuclear waste expert and his colleagues.
In a review article in this week's edition of the journal Science, U-M's Rodney Ewing and two colleagues call for an ambitious, long-term national research program to study how nuclear fuels behave under the extreme conditions present during core-melt events like those that occurred at Fukushima following the March 11, 2011, magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami.
Three of the plant's six boiling-water reactors suffered partial core-melt events that involved tremendously high temperatures and powerful radiation fields, as well as interaction between seawater and nuclear fuel. Many tons of seawater were used to cool the overheated reactors and nearby spent-fuel storage ponds, and direct discharge of contaminated seawater to the ocean and groundwater occurred through approximately April 8.
"What I realized while watching all of this was how little we actually knew about what happens if you take hot seawater and pour it on nuclear fuel," said Ewing, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences, and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Ewing is also a member of the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1211285Published on Mar 08, 2012
Written by Jim Erickson
[font size=3]ANN ARBOR, Mich.A year after the crisis at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, scientists and engineers remain largely in the dark when it comes to fundamental knowledge about how nuclear fuels behave under extreme conditions, according to a University of Michigan nuclear waste expert and his colleagues.
In a review article in this week's edition of the journal Science, U-M's Rodney Ewing and two colleagues call for an ambitious, long-term national research program to study how nuclear fuels behave under the extreme conditions present during core-melt events like those that occurred at Fukushima following the March 11, 2011, magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami.
Three of the plant's six boiling-water reactors suffered partial core-melt events that involved tremendously high temperatures and powerful radiation fields, as well as interaction between seawater and nuclear fuel. Many tons of seawater were used to cool the overheated reactors and nearby spent-fuel storage ponds, and direct discharge of contaminated seawater to the ocean and groundwater occurred through approximately April 8.
"What I realized while watching all of this was how little we actually knew about what happens if you take hot seawater and pour it on nuclear fuel," said Ewing, a professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences, and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Ewing is also a member of the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.
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Fukushima lesson: Prepare for unanticipated nuclear accidents (Original Post)
OKIsItJustMe
Mar 2012
OP
Dead_Parrot
(14,478 posts)1. But if we're prepared for them, they won't be unanticipated.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,937 posts)3. No… that’s not it
The idea is to have some idea in advance of what to do when the unanticipated inevitably occurs.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)2. Decommission the most dangerous older plants immediately. Don't build new ones.
That will lower risks of further "events", significantly.
saras
(6,670 posts)4. Ah, the unknown unknowns - the one thing Rumsfeld was right about.
The precautionary principle would suggest that your reactors not be CAPABLE of doing anything that you haven't already tested.
OKIsItJustMe
(19,937 posts)5. I don't believe that's possible
When a Fail-Safe system fails, it fails by failing to fail safe. John Gall
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gall_%28author%29